MLK Day Challenge encourages Chicagoans to step outside comfort zone, break down barriers (Uncut)
Last Monday, United States marked the Martin Luther King Day - a day meant to give Americans opportunity to reflect on the iconic civil rights leader. Which is always an… interesting holiday to mark here in Chicago, since that was the city where King’s efforts to end housing segregation completely and utterly failed. Not that many people outside the city’s black communities like to acknowledge that part.
Anyway, I bring all of this up because, last week I wrote an article for Austin Weekly News about one organization’s effort to do its part to break down barriers and get people all over Chicago to go in neighborhoods where they wouldn’t normally go. And while the article kept many important parts, my editor removed pretty much all of the references to Austin. And since I went through the trouble of going to Austin’s MacArthur’s restaurants to get some of those quotes, I wanted to make sure they’re up somewhere.
So here’s the original article in its entirety
----
As far as Jahmal Cole, founder and head of My Block, My Hood, My City is concerned, there is no better way to celebrate Martin Luther King Day than to encourage everyone to do their part to push back against the thing to acclaimed civil rights leader came to Chicago to fight - segregation.
For the past few years, Cole has been using his non-profit to take teenagers to neighborhoods they wouldn't otherwise set foot in in hopes of shattering their preconceptions and inspiring them to see new opportunities. And, last weekend, he launched what he hopes is the first annual MLK Day Challenge. The challenge encouraged everyone to use the Martin Luther King Day weekend to go to neighborhoods they wouldn't normally visit, and check out local landmarks and businesses and talk about landmarks on social media. Cole told Austin Weekly News that he hoped that the event will help break down barriers and encourage Chicagoans see that they have more in common with each other than they thought.
As My Block, My Hood, My City website explains, the organization believes that, no matter where kids ages 12-18 live and how munch money their families make, they benefit from stepping outside their communities. They get a chance to see businesses, landmarks and institutions they would otherwise never see, talk to people they would have otherwise never met. It expands the worldview, shatters negative preconceptions and lets them imagine the possibilities that otherwise wouldn't have occurred to them.
The non-profit places particular focus on teens from communities that don't have many resources.
“These teens have not ventured outside of their immediate surroundings, both literally and figuratively,” the website stated. “They have not traveled outside of their block; have not dreamed beyond their neighborhood. They haven’t been afforded the opportunity to dream bigger than their immediate environment, and therefore, their future aspirations and goals are similarly limited.”
To address this, My Block, My Hood, My City has been organizing monthly tours that took teens to destinations all over Chicago. The idea wasn't just to show different places, but to show that all those places are in the same city. The organization teamed up with several non-profits, including By the Hand, which has a location in Austin.
The MLK Day Challenge was an outgrowth of the organization's mission. Cole told this newspaper that he's been thinking about doing something like this for the past few years, but it didn't come together until this year.
“Since Martin Luther King Jr. was about things being integrated, being interconnected, it made sense to do things on this day.”
Cole put together a list of destinations in Chatham, where he lives, as well as North Lawndale, Bronzeville, Humboldt Park, Hyde Park, Pilsen, South Shore, Washington Park and West Ridge. He said he wanted to have a mix of neighborhoods from different parts of the city. He chose West Ridge - the only North Side neighborhood on the list - because its Devon Avenue commercial strip is the center of Chicago's Indian-American community.
“We cant's afford to go to India, but we ck an afford to go to Devon Avenue,” he said. “When you go there, you think it's in another county. It's close, but people think its far away.”
In every neighorhood, he recommended cultural destinations and businesses that he knew for sure would be open on Martin Luther King Day. In North Lawndale, he chose Douglas Park, the Firehouse Community Arts Center and El Gran Burrito. To participate in the challenge, residents had to go to any of the locations at any point on January 13-15 and post about the experience on social media with hashtag #MLKDayChallege.
When asked whether he considered any destinations in Austin, or in West and East Garfield parks, Cole said that he was going with what he knew atop of his head. He emphasized that Austin had plenty to offer, citing MacArthur's Soul Food Restaurant as an example. After Cole married his wife, Tiffany, the newlyweds got some food from them for their after-wedding party - and he still enjoys it.
“I go there once a month,” he said. 'They got the best macaroni and cheese in the city.”
While Cole originally planned to have his Sunday lunch at West Ridge, during the course of the interview with the Weekly, he changed his mind and decided to spend it at MacArthur's instead.
Jahmal Cole at MacArthur's (photo by me, with Cole's phone)
During the interview, he said that the list is meant to help Chicagoans who wanted to participate, but it wasn't meant to limit them. So long as they went to places they've never been before, they could go anywhere in Chicago - including in Austin.
Indeed, before he went to MacArthur's, Cole posted about it on social media and encouraged everybody reading it to visit it as well.
Eileen McKeough lives in Humbold Park, is a subscriber to My Block, My Hood, My Chicago's e-mail newsletter. She said she primarily stopped by to see Tiffany Cole and check out a restaurant she's never been to.
McKeough told the Weekly that she liked what she saw.
“I love [MacArthur's],” she said. “What's not to love. I will bring other people.”
Mrs. Cole told the Weekly that she grew up nearby, across the street from the now-closed Emmet Elementary School. She said that seeing Austin now that she's older has been a mixed bag.
“Some parts have improved, but the part that I find [sad]... seeing one of the schools that's been shut down, it almost makes you feel like the community has gone downhill,” Cole said.
While she didn't take part in MLK Day Challenge on Saturday, she said she supported the idea.
“To chart into the unknown territory, it's an unfamiliar process for us,” Cole said, explaining that, when venturing outside the community, there is self-conscious feeling of intruding on someone else's space and worrying that you'd do something wrong.
“It's a challenge, [my husband] is right about that,” Cole said. “So it's pretty cool to get to do that.”
She reflected that, in a way, their relationship was about crossing borders. She grew up in Austin, he grew up in the city of North Chicago, and now they both live on the South Side.
Jahmal Cole told the Weekly that, as of Jan. 14, the response was fairly positive.
“[The MLK Day Challenge] is going great,” he said. “People are engaged. It makes me feel good that people are out there, supporting my vision, the visions that Martin Luther King Jr. shared.”
That vision, Cole said, was that segregation hurts all communities economically and socially, and prevents the exchange of ideas.
Cole hopes that the MLK Day Challenge will show people that Chicagoans have more in common than they realize.
“I love traveling to different communities,” he said. “We're not that different. If you go to Greektown, you're going to have a pita bread, rice and beef. IF you go to Pilsen, you're going to have a tortilla. If you go to Devon Avenue, you can have beef with rice.”
----
A side note. I didn’t mention it in the article (because our Austin readers already know it), but MacArthur’s is a big deal on the West Side. Their wall is who-is-who of politicians and celebrities, and whenever a West Side politician wants to reach out to the community, I covered plenty of press conferences and events there, but I didn’t actually eat there until I got breakfast after covering a school event, and I didn’t have lunch until the Sunday interview. Which was very filling and a nice West Side milestone.
Oh, and I almost forgot. As I was eating lunch, a man in his 50s was enjoying lunch with a woman that I’m guessing was his wife when a phone rang.
"I'm at church,” he said. “I can't talk, 'cause I'm at church. I'll call you when I get out."
I suppose, to some people, MacArthur is a church ;)